A Problem Shared
by purple-drake
Summary: [COMPLETE] With the city standing down after the incident with the entity, Grodin and Bates find themselves in command of the nightshift. But there are more things to go bump in the night, and one of them's in the same room...


**A/N:** _Here it is, the first instalment of my Grodin/Bates friendship arc! I was actually working on this at the same time as 'Night Goes On', and just went all out when the site went screwy. I haven't been so driven to write in ages, it's great!_

_Set very early season 1, just after 'Hide and Seek', and rated for Bates' language. Although, it could be worse, I suppose…_

_Oh, yeah, disclaimer. I don't own nuffin'. Not even the name of the Canadian Sergeant – once again, that belongs to NenyaVilyaNenya. And Bates' first name, I can't remember who that belongs to, but I read it somewhere and thought it felt right. Although, Bates strikes me as the type of guy who likes to be called by his surname, so I haven't used it much. Oh, and I did make up the name of the Asian technician. Well, I chose it, anyway. And I do make mention of another unnamed canon character, who I've given a name to, but since you don't meet her..._

_I've got this feeling that this story actually has a few holes in it… well, not so much holes, just a few things that sort of 'feel' unrealistic. At least, as unrealistic as a sci-fi fic gets. So comments are appreciated!_

'_Nuff babbling. On with the show!

* * *

_  
Restlessness.

Bates hated it with a passion. It got into your muscles, prevented you from resting and disrupted your concentration. As a soldier, restlessness and boredom was something he battled daily, and he generally won.

Most people assumed that Bates was too focussed, too self-possessed to feel much in the way of that particular emotion, but they were dead wrong. Although maybe it wouldn't be so bad if it didn't always happen when he wastrying to_ get some damned sleep!_

With a low growl, Sergeant Ezekiel Bates yanked his military grey blanket off, swinging his legs over the side of the ruffled bed and pulling his BDU trousers on over his red boxers, his small room lit by the bubbling green light of the tanked water, embraced by terracotta, clay-like cambers.

At least this time he knew the reason for his restiveness, he reflected grumpily, rubbing the grit from his eyes with the heel of his palm even as he shrugged his grey-and-black jacket on over his shirt. It had only been last evening that the lightning entity had been lured through the gate, and Doctor Weir had ordered everyone to catch up on the sleep they'd missed while the creature was roaming the city. Bates hadn't been on duty afterwards and every soldier knew it was a good idea to sleep when you could, but his compulsive paranoia refused to let him rest. He just couldn't get the image of that roiling black cloud out of his mind. What if there was another one out there?

If he was grateful for anything, it was the fact that his type of restlessness was easily cured: all he had to do was convince his suspicious mind that everything was safe. A few patrols around the central tower should be enough.

So it was that, in the hazy early morning, the swarthy marine found himself touring the uniform corridors of the command tower, passing beneath the dim orange glow of the triangular light panels overhead and through the open, maroon-edged doorframes, his Kevlar vest heavy on his shoulders and P90 gripped in rough hands, aimed securely at the crimson floor. Each hallway was silent but for the quiet hum of charged crystals and the occasional snore that filtered through the chiselled bronze doors leading to personal quarters.

By the time he reached the gateroom he had calmed down a great deal and stopped jumping at shadows. The spacious chamber was dark and mostly unlit, pierced only by the bright illumination emanating through the glass of the balconied control room, and Bates found himself eager to stump up the Ancient-etched steps to the reach the light.

The room was eerily quiet and he suppressed a shudder, fingering the grip of his weapon with residual uneasiness even as he gained the stretch of floor between the circular conference room and the broad control gallery.

An instant later he found his stomach clenched with tense adrenaline, his dark, squinting eyes surveying the empty room with guarded apprehension. _What the hell! _His hand flew automatically to his thin black radio earpiece, lips parting to call in Major Sheppard, already at the entrance with hardly any recollection of the fact he'd moved.

Then, "Sergeant Bates?"

Before he'd stopped to consider the soft, vaguely familiar voice behind him Bates spun about on his heel, his P90 levelled and primed.

The dark-haired man, clad in a long-sleeved shirt of scientist blue, looked startled, brow raised questioningly, and Bates let out a slow breath, trying to calm his pounding heart as he lowered the gun.

"Did I miss something, or are we still supposed to be on alert?" the scientist asked, looking serious, but his British-accented tone was warm with humour.

"Just a precaution, Doc," Bates told him shortly, eyeing the black datapad the man held, its screen glowing faintly pink and blue, wracking his mind to figure out the man's name. He'd seen him around before, always in the control gallery. "You shouldn't have left the gateroom unmanned." His tone was chastising, stern, but the other just smiled, tilting his head in a faint shrug as he moved past, his shoes loud in the relative quiet.

"I just had to step across to the conference room for a few moments," he said by way of explanation, laying the datapad on the silver desktop of one of their own low trolleys and plugging it into the Atlantis mainframe with clear wires.

Bates followed him in, almost scowling, unwilling to let the matter go. He'd nearly had a heart attack, dammit, even civilians should know better. "Why aren't there two people on duty?" he demanded.

"There were," the Englishman answered matter-of-factly, lifting the slim lid of a closed laptop, perched on the white-gripped shelf at the front of one of the maroon consoles, and leaning over it, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "Doctor Clough wasn't feeling well and our relief is due to come in…" – he checked the thick-banded watch on his wrist – "…ten minutes. So I told her to go early."

This was why he hated scientists. You just couldn't trust them to stay focussed; as soon as they found something better than the thing they were already working on, off they went. They had no sense of duty.

"It's not procedure," Bates rebuked him harshly, but to his irritation the scientist's only reply was a chuckle, not even looking away from the glowing monitor.

"In case you didn't notice, Sergeant, I'm not military." He pressed a final key and left the computer, turning about to jog up the step behind him and taking a place at one of two identical incised consoles on the central dais.

_And apparently no sense of caution, either._

"We just came off a military situation," Bates snapped, infuriated, trailing after him to stand in front of the high-backed instrument panel. "What if there was another one of those things out there?"

The man just raised his eyebrow at him and gave him a look that said he highly doubted that scenario, so Bates returned with his best glower. _Damn scientists,_ he seethed grumpily to himself. Okay, so he doubted that would happen too, but he was trying to make a point here.

"Is that why you're out here patrolling the gateroom in the dead of night?" the Englishman asked, ignoring his expression, and Bates bristled at the throwaway tone. His reason for patrolling was even less than that, but still…!

"Look, Doc," he snapped, taking a step closer to the wide back of the console, tapering down to two deep legs set into the black-lined floor. "If it weren't for us you scientists wouldn't even be here –"

He cut off when he realized that said scientist was _laughing_ at him, raising his hands in supplication. "Never mind," the man said with a tight grin, moving around the long, sloping arm of the console and back towards the laptop, whose screen displayed the flickering, thin-lined map of Atlantis. "Actually, I could probably use your help."

Bates turned around, his expression disbelieving. "_My_ help?" he demanded, tempted to refuse simply for annoying him; but Bates was more professional than that, and immediately dismissed the thought from his mind.

"Yes," The scientist threw him a quick, measuring glance, making Bates abruptly certain that although the man appeared to be focussed on his work to the point of his participation in the conversation being absent at best, he was well aware of Bates' presence and attitude. "See here," He pointed at a place on the map near the central tower, and Bates somewhat reluctantly moved forward to see over his shoulder.

"There's been a glitch in the energy distribution. I suspect it's to do with the entity's presence; if it passed too close to something it could easily have shorted out the circuits." The scientist shrugged as he straightened, one hand flourishing the air before both of them moved to his waist. "Obviously I can't go alone, since it's outside of the perimeter Major Sheppard set, so I had been planning to hand the problem over to one of the day teams."

He finally looked up to meet Bates' brown eyes, who was staring at the monitor and frowning thoughtfully, fingers drumming on the butt of his gun. "Since you're here, we may as well go to investigate as soon as my shift is over; if it's only a glitch, easily fixed, there doesn't seem much point in letting someone else deal with it."

Bates had to admit he had a point; there was something to be said about the phrase 'if you want something done, do it yourself'. Besides, it was a perfect excuse to exorcise his own paranoia, it's not like it was too far beyond the perimeter, and they'd always be able to keep in radio contact with the control room.

So when Sergeant Grimault, a tawny-haired Canadian technician, arrived, Bates was sitting in one of the revolving, steel-backed control seats, tapping his P90 impatiently against his leg. "Good morning, Doctor Grodin," the sergeant greeted Bates' British companion cheerfully, and the scientist looked up from the laptop screen he'd been studying.

"Good morning, Sergeant," Grodin answered, his attention shifting from the technician back to the computer in the blink of an eye.

_Peter Grodin, that's it._ Bates repeated to himself, remembering the name now he'd heard it again. He was in charge of the control room; he remembered being slightly surprised that a scientist would choose a job so menial where there was a plethora of other more interesting things to investigate in the city.

"Sergeant Bates," Black-clad Grimault nodded at the marine, who gave him a short, distracted head-jerk back as Grodin slipped out of his chair in front of the hexagonal DHD and Grimault laid a hand on the back to stop it from swinging, taking the seat himself.

"Sergeant Bates and I are going to investigate a power shortage on the northern side," Grodin told the Canadian, deftly unplugging his rectangular datapad from the network and attaching a wide material strip to the sides to sling over his shoulder.

"Not yet, we're not," Bates snapped. He'll be damned if he left the control room shorthanded.

"As soon as Doctor Nguyen gets here," Grodin added long-sufferingly, and from his tone Bates was certain he'd just rolled his eyes, confirmed by the grin Sergeant Grimault tried – and failed – to hide.

The Asian-American technician arrived a few minutes later, stifling a yawn and with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, and Bates all but leapt up from the round, uncomfortable seat. _How_ the control staff could stand it for hours on end was beyond him.

"Good luck, sirs," Grimault offered as the pair left down the slim metallic steps curving beneath the puddlejumper bay and through the sliding, stain-glassed doors leading out into the city.

The further out of the inhabited areas they went, the jitterier Bates became. Shadows loomed ahead of them, even though the corridors lit up at their approach, and more than once the marine snapped up his gun only to find it was their own silhouettes. The worst part was that he got the constant feeling that Grodin was laughing at him every time he did so.

Well, actually, he _knew_ Grodin was laughing at him; once, he turned around to see the Englishman with his stylus suspended above the softly glowing monitor of his datapad, chuckling and shaking his head. At that Bates had ground his teeth irritably, shooting the scientist dark looks every so often, which his companion studiously ignored. The marine took himself very seriously; he was used to people either being intimidated by him or hating him.

Having someone _laugh_ at him was a new experience, and he wasn't enjoying it.

At long last they reached a broad stretch of wall, with the same dusty-brown panels enclosed by maroon frames, but while the corridor curved away to the left, to the right was a recess with a climbing spiral staircase.

Neither of these were as interesting as the wide open doorframe, in that familiar shape vaguely reminiscent of the central tower, right in the middle of the wall. "It's here," Grodin said calmly, using his stylus to zoom in on the schematic of the area that he'd downloaded onto his datapad. "This door must be malfunctioning." The slim flashlight mounted on Bates' P90 played over the door, showing no panels that the scientist could conceivably connect with to figure out the problem, and the marine said as much.

"It's probably inside," Grodin suggested, peering into the square, darkened room with the datapad folded against his side. Bates cleared his throat, lifting his gun, and Grodin stepped aside with raised hands and slight grin tugging the corners of his mouth, allowing the marine to go first.

As soon as he stepped foot onto the grey, stone-like floor the ceiling flickered to life, illuminating the uniform, ribbed metal walls and a thick, familiar-shaped door at the opposite end, made of a silvery alloy. A clear band ran around the walls through the centre, possessing that crystalline quality of an unlit light-cover.

Then, over the tap of Grodin's footsteps as he followed, there was the hiss of the door closing. Heart suddenly pounding in his ribs, Bates whirled around to find Grodin already at the entrance, hand running over the walls to either side. A moment later a section of the metal, previously flush with the rest, ejected and slid to the side, revealing a mesh of crystals and clear wires.

"What happened?" Bates demanded, over a sudden hum as the crystalline strip glowed blue, casting azure light across the floor and over their faces, giving them both washed out appearances. "I thought the door wasn't working!"

"It must have reset itself when we entered," Grodin surmised, thin, clear leads already trailing from the plugs in his datapad to the mechanics of the panel. The slender pointer settled between his fingers flashed quickly over the pink-and-blue screen as he made his way through the control pathways, trying to find the one to open the door.

"Well, get us out!" Bates growled, flexing his hand over the grip of his P90, his eyes skittering over the bright, humming walls.

"Give me a moment," Grodin responded with the slightest of steel edges lacing his words, granting Bates a momentary pang of satisfaction, when suddenly the blue light cut off and the door across the room slid open. For a few moments the two of them stared, then looked back at each other.

"Well?" Bates asked through narrowed eyes.

Grodin looked down at the monitor, raising the stylus as though about to continue, and then let his hand fall with a sigh. "The pathways are well secured," he admitted. "The Ancients definitely did not want someone to hack through this door."

"Could the technicians in the control room open it?" Bates felt his annoyance once again mounting, this time joined by tension, his gaze and the barrel of his gun drawn constantly to the open door on the opposite side of the room.

Grodin paused in the motion of tugging the cords from their sockets, letting them dangle from their outlets, and tapped the earpiece of his radio. "Control, this is Doctor Grodin." He waited for a few beats, but there was no answer, not even static, and with a frown he tried again. "Control, respond."

Nothing.

With growing apprehension he met Bates' tight gaze, shaking his head silently.

Bates growled as the scientist went back to detaching his datapad from the wall. "What is this room for?"

"If I had to guess," Grodin replied with a cursory glance over the chamber, stuffing the cords back into the hollow and sliding the cover smoothly back into place, "I'd say it was some kind of an airlock or decontamination chamber. It would explain why the door is so secure, why there are no obvious panels. As for the reason we can't reach the control room…" he shrugged helplessly.

"Right," Bates muttered, lifting his P90 once again and aiming it towards the open, beckoning door, moving carefully towards it. Without a word Grodin followed, fumbling for the torch he'd attached to the side of the datapad before they left.

The room they stepped into was dark and close, the air heavy with the tangy scent of seawater. The airlock's light bathed over water-stained catwalks, gleaming across the thin railings, but hardly penetrated the utter gloom of the wide space they could sense before them. It scarcely gave them more than a few moments to take in what they could see before it abruptly cut off when the door slid shut behind them. Bates exchanged a grim look with Grodin, who shrugged wordlessly, barely able to see each other in the meagre illumination. It wasn't as though they had a choice, after all, with only one exit.

Bates' footsteps were loud on the corrugated flooring of the narrow walkway as he moved forward cautiously, the beams of light mere pinpricks through the shadows. In the distance they could see the glint of more catwalks, layered above the broad, step-like floor to provide a bit of height above the ground.

He didn't have to move far before the chamber sensed them and light rippled up the walls in flickering and obviously damaged columns, most unlike the crystals of the rest of the city. They lit the room dimly, just enough to see a huge circular area with a deep pit in the centre, perfectly in line with a flattened dip in the high and otherwise shallowly curving ceiling. The opposite wall was bare compared to the busy paths of the narrower, squarer entranceway except for a thin flight of steps cut into the levelled floor, leading from the cavity to a long line of shimmering panels now alive against the far side.

"A laboratory," Grodin murmured from behind Bates, squinting through the darkness pressing in around the entrance with a gleam in his eyes, and the marine didn't argue. "But it's different to the others." The scientist frowned, staring at the intermittent lights columning the uniform walls. "Why didn't they use the crystal technology here?"

_Who cares?_ Bates couldn't help thinking, threading his way down the warren of catwalks towards the yawning cavity in the centre in the hope that there might be a second exit near it. "Don't get too far behind, Doc," he called gruffly instead, his voice echoing, sounding louder than it should have.

They descended into the gloom, one as edgy as a squirrel on steroids and the other apparently all but immune to the darkness, looking thoughtfully down at his datapad.

"Strange," Grodin muttered after a decent period of silence, so abruptly that Bates jumped and spun around. The scientist's only reply was a raised brow and mildly amused expression.

"Don't do that!" Bates hissed, incensed, trying to calm his pounding heartbeat.

"Calm down, Sergeant," was Grodin's even reply. "If there was anything in here that could attack us, surely it would have done so by now. We haven't exactly been quiet." Bates didn't answer, too well-trained to assume anything.

Instead he asked tersely, "What's strange?"

Grodin sighed, his flashlight held awkwardly in the hand propping the datapad and the other tapping the stylus absently against the black-coated side. "It seemed odd that there could be a room like this so close to the central tower without us knowing, but I've been checking the power readings from the past few days and while there are figures consistent with what a room this size would require, it doesn't say where all the energy _goes._"

"I thought most of the city was offline," Bates frowned, wishing he was back in his nice, warm bed instead of traipsing through a stinking, waterlogged lab with an incomprehensible scientist. What the hell had he been thinking?

"Yes, but there's still energy running through it," Grodin pointed out. "Including this laboratory. And yet as far as the central tower is concerned, there's no room here, even though it's on the map and it's clearly using power."

"Sounds like a real puzzle, Doc," Bates turned back to his path, rolling his eyes. What was with scientists and their insistence in drawing conclusions from everything? It was like they were troving for recognition. Behind him he caught the sound of an exasperated sigh, even as he stepped down onto the grey floor, at the lowermost point in the chamber: the narrow aisle encircling the pit.

"It's important, Sergeant, because it's probably connected the reason that we can't reach the control room. Why they closed it off, I don't know; perhaps they were researching something that was a danger to the rest of the city. It wouldn't be on the map if it weren't common knowledge, so the reasons can't have been clandestine." The scientist's tone had turned speculative, as though he was speaking aloud for his own benefit, to clear his thoughts.

Bates growled to himself beneath the sound of Grodin's footsteps following him down as he scanned the edge of the pit, lined with a silvery metal that looked the same as the one the puddlejumpers were made of. Maybe there was a ladder or folding stairs…

He didn't notice the floor in front of him, shifting from stained grey to a discoloured, gleaming black.

"Right now, Doc, I couldn't care less. We've found out what that glitch was; now all I want to do is go back to bed." _So the sooner we find a way out of here, the better._

He hardly finished speaking when his feet suddenly skated out from beneath him.

He hit the slick ground hard enough to numb his entire arm, forcing a pained grunt from his lips as he slithered uncontrollably over the edge of the pit. For one gut-wrenching moment he was freefalling; then he abruptly lurched to a halt, crashing back against the smooth crater wall as a flashlight fell, spinning, into darkness.

For several moments he could do nothing but hang, stunned, his Kevlar jacket tight across his chest and under his arms; then he heard a grunt from somewhere above him and his position shifted jerkily, enough to make his stomach clench in fear and a stream of expletives to cut the air.

"For once, Sergeant," Grodin's voice muttered tightly from overhead, "We are in agreement."

"You're fast, Doc," Bates choked out dazedly, breathless with adrenaline and relief.

"Boxing," the physicist grunted in reply. "I had to be fast to make up for the fact that everyone else was bigger than me."

For one rare moment Bates was speechless with surprise, unable to reconcile the thought of a scientist as a boxer. Grodin wasn't exceptionally tall by any means; the most one could say was that he was stocky, if that.

Then he thought of the story that had gone around Atlantis, about Grodin trying to lay McKay out, and he smirked into the darkness. Maybe it wasn't so farfetched after all. "So you can punch. Doesn't mean you can fight."

Grodin laughed shortly. "I beg to differ." His tone was almost enigmatic, as though his words were an inside joke that Bates hadn't shared. Then, "Give me your arm."

Awkwardly the marine reached up with his good hand, unable to turn lest Grodin lose his grip on the back of his vest, and a second later he felt the scientist grasp his wrist, pulling uncomfortably on his long sleeve. "Ready?"

"Do it," Bates answered through gritted teeth, and for the third time in as many minutes his heart leapt to his throat as Grodin released his vest and he fell with the scrape of fabric, only to be caught moments later. He kicked his feet, twisting around to support himself against the wall, finally able to look up and catch sight of his companion, framed against the dim lights set into the high ceiling.

Inexplicably, half of the scientist's face seemed stained a blue so dark it was almost black and his sleeves, rolled to his elbows, gleamed wetly the same colour as a trickle of liquid ran down his arm and pooled at Bates' hand. That was the first time that the marine noticed the appalling taste in his mouth, the fact that his clothes were soaked through and clinging to him uncomfortably. Whatever the Englishman had rolled in, he had too.

"Anytime, Doc," Bates told him curtly, lodging his boots against the metal. His arms were beginning to ache, one with exertion and the other as the feeling seeped back to his fingers. Tilting his head in a kind of 'if you insist' motion, Grodin braced himself to heave the damp soldier up, when something pale lashed through the murky darkness of the pit, coiling itself around Bates' upper legs and pulling him down in one swift movement.

Bates' feet slipped on the smooth wall and he dropped with a lurch, Grodin's rescuing hand so tight around his forearm that the blood was pounding in his fingers in accompaniment with his heart. The tentacle was clammy, the moisture soaking through his clothes, and he fumbled for the previously forgotten weapon dangling at his waist.

His body twisting, shoulder screaming in complaint, he aimed the gun half blindly at the quivering limb stretching into the depths and fired. An unearthly scream reverberated up from the darkness and the tentacle thrashed, throwing Bates back against the wall with an explosive breath before pulling back as quickly as it had come.

"Get me out of here," the swarthy marine gasped, and Grodin, jaw set and muscles working with effort, hauled him up over the edge.

Splashing the two of them with tepid liquid, Bates scrambled away from the pit to crouch by the walkway, his breath coming fast and limbs shaking with adrenaline as he glared at Grodin. "'If there's anything in here that would attack us, it would have done so by now'? What the hell is that!"

"Cause for apology," Grodin admitted with a grimace as he wiped at the dark water dripping down his face with the heel of his palm, himself slightly winded, kneeling close by. His once-blue shirt was clinging to him wetly, stained almost black where he'd lain in the puddle, and fleetingly Bates wondered whether he looked as bad.

But neither of them had much chance to consider anything else, because they were interrupted by the scrape of flesh on metal and the sight of looming tentacles climbing the pit, splayed across the edge.

"Go!" Bates gave the scientist a shove towards the catwalk, clicking his flashlight on, though Grodin took the second or two necessary to snatch up his datapad, lying on the discoloured floor, before obeying. The sergeant followed him up the steps but paused some way in, levelling his P90 at the thick, shifting appendages. He aimed and fired, splattering the creature with blue blood as it shrieked and writhed, the roar of the weapon echoing loudly in the spacious room.

One of the tentacles whipped towards him and he dropped to the hard floor with a hiss of pain at his sore muscles, finding a place on his thigh that had been bruised by his gun the first time and received a second whack. The limb whooshed overhead, crashing down on the unyielding catwalk behind him with a shuddering crunch that rattled his teeth. Some way in front, he saw Grodin's figure stagger and grip the railing, almost falling from the blow himself. It was testimony to the strength of Ancient architecture that the entire warren didn't just crumble and break, even though the banister now had a gap in it the width of a puddlejumper.

Boots scrabbling on the corrugated metal, Bates pushed himself up and ran, dodging around the sharp corners and up steps in the meandering net of catwalks, his chest clenching upon the realization that the airlock's door was probably still closed. "Sergeant!" Grodin called back from slightly higher up, and gestured quickly to the side. The flashlight's beam tore across the dark-haired scientist in the direction he was pointing, jogging erratically over the near wall but steady enough for the marine to see the grey-framed doorway.

Behind him Bates could hear the creak of metal as the creature pulled itself after them, shaking the catwalks, but didn't dare turn to look. He could _feel_ its presence, like a cloud or storm looming over him, making his shoulders prickle alarmingly. His muscles were burning with fatigue, his legs protesting every time he was forced to change direction, but the door was close now and he saw Grodin dash through in the instant that his flashlight careened over it.

Next moment he was sent lurching against the sharp-edged railing when one of the tentacles plunged down onto the path before him, twisting the barrier with a high-pitched shriek. Almost reflexively, with a snake-like snapping motion, the tip lashed around in an attempt to coil itself around Bates' ankles, dragging half a dozen metal posts with it. But the marine's reflexes were just as good; the tentacle closed on air as he hurtled over the pallid flesh and through the open door.

His feet caught on themselves and he let himself fall, turning to aim the gun through the entrance as he landed with a jolt. The door was already hissing shut, shuddering under the force of a dozen of the tentacles striking the exterior. To the side, Grodin was rapidly tugging crystals out of a familiar-looking hollow, bringing clear wires with them. The door trembled but held, locked, and Bates let himself fall wearily back to the clear, cool floor, chest heaving with huge gasps for air.

"Sergeant! Are you all right?" Grodin demanded breathlessly as he leaned against the edge of the open panel, a stack of yellow and orange crystals clutched in his hand. Bates snarled in answer, throwing him a glare fit to flay the skin off a recruit, but Grodin just chuckled, catching his wind at last.

A few moments later, so did Bates, who sat up with a stifled groan, gripping his P90 as though for security. _I hate it when my paranoia is right._ He thought bitterly, knowing he wouldn't have been able to sleep well at all if he had known for sure that creature was in Atlantis. Shoving away longing thoughts of his warm bed in a safe room where he could turn the lights on full blast if he wanted to, he turned his attention to the small room they occupied.

Its appearance was reminiscent of the transporters in the main city, albeit several sizes larger and without the glowing map of the city. It was completely empty, lit only by dim triangular panels in the roof like those in the laboratory outside, and felt very close and stuffy. "Storeroom," Grodin said without looking up from where he was ducking his head to carefully replace the crystals, using his datapad to predict the appropriate locations, as Bates got to his feet, casting a critical and disappointed eye over the incised grey walls. "Probably emptied when the Ancients fled the city."

The Englishman turned over one of the crystals in his hands, staring at it thoughtfully for so long that Bates finally snapped, "Well, can you fix it or not?" The marine wasn't quite certain why he'd pulled so many of the damn things out to begin with, but then, he wasn't a scientist. Thank God.

Grodin looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, brandish the vaguely square-shaped crystal at him. "Doesn't it seem odd to you?"

Bates eyed him, nettled. "It's a crystal," he said in a tone that said clearly he'd thought Grodin was definitely missing a few screws. Mind you, he thought all scientists were missing more than that, so it wasn't really news. Arrogant, glory-grubbing, technobabble speakers, they were.

Grodin pursed his lips and shook his head long-sufferingly as though Bates had missed something completely obvious. "It's not the same kind of crystal we use in the rest of the city."

Bates scowled, looking at the object a second time. It sure _looked_ the same; same cut, same size, same…

Not _the same colour,_ he realized suddenly, and glanced about at the rest of the controls strewn at the base of the hollow. All the crystals he'd seen were blue or white; these were all yellow and orange, and as he looked closer, he saw that they were cloudier than the ones he was used to.

"What's it mean?" he asked as the scientist continued with his work, although Bates noticed that he laid several aside at the bottom of the opening and even slipped one into his pocket.

Grodin took one of the crystals from his mouth so he could answer, using it to trace a pathway displayed on the datapad he held. "As I said before, the lab is cut off from the rest of the city, perhaps to prevent the object of their research from adversely affecting something outside. It's possible they required an alternate form of the crystal technology to maintain its functions. Why, I'm not sure; it could be any number of reasons."

So basically they were locked in a sub-modern Ancient laboratory with practically no light, no way to contact help, and a giant squid.

Great. Just the way he always wanted to spend his morning. Night. Whatever.

"All right, Sergeant," Grodin's voice shattered the marine's brooding thoughts and he stared impatiently at the scientist, feeling less-than-gracious towards his companion at that point in time. Grodin didn't seem to notice or care; he held up one of the crystals, darker than the others, almost red. "The door is supposed to work on detection," the Englishman told him. "But I've reset it so it will only open when you place this crystal," – he gestured with the item – "Here." And tapped a thin socket near the threshold of the hollow.

"What good's that going to do?" Bates asked sourly. "There's a giant squid on the other side of that door just waiting for us to open it."

"I saw a stairwell in the corner of this and the airlock's wall," Grodin said casually, pushing the wires and spare crystals to the back of the opening and letting his datapad fall to hang by his side. "When we were running from the squid. I think it leads to the control room; I might be able to open the airlock door from there."

Feeling annoyance well up inside of him, Bates cut off the reprimand for not telling him earlier and instead demanded, "Exactly how do you plan to get there?"

In answer the scientist gave him a serious look that made his shoulders prickle with sudden, dawning apprehension.

Which was why, minutes later, the soldier found himself scowling at the door, taking even breaths, his gun checked and primed. God, but he hated running interference, always had. It meant he wasn't in the thick of where the real action was going to be. Bates rarely trusted anyone's judgement except his own; if something was going to happen, he damn well wanted to come to his own conclusions about it and not hear another one second-hand. Other people were fallible. At least if he dealt with it and made a mistake, he knew where he stood.

What surprised him was the fact that, when Grodin had asked if he could provide a suitable distraction and Bates had offered him an affirmative, the scientist had nodded and said nothing more on the matter. He hadn't asked him if he was sure; he hadn't asked him to stop him from getting killed; he'd just accepted it and gone on with the plan. In Bates' experience, civilians had a tendency to get nervous, afraid, either shooting their mouths off or acting as though he was already on his deathbed. And that was when he'd suggested the idea himself.

Bates' respect for the scientist went up a few notches.

"Ready?" Grodin asked, his accented voice tense, and Bates nodded shortly. He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

The door slid open and the dark-haired marine broke from its threshold, his P90 blazing. The squid recoiled with a high-pitched squeal, long tentacles writhing, protecting a round, coarse body from the projectiles. Bates ducked down a short set of steps, heading towards the pit, and from somewhere inside the roiling, slick mass of jumbled limbs he could see beady eyes – multiple – glinting in the beam of his flashlight, glaring in his direction.

Behind him he heard the sound of running footsteps and fired another round into the creature's soggy flesh to keep its attention.

He had it all right; as he skidded around one corner, banging his hip painfully on the metal railing with a curse and leaping over a tangle of warped railing strewn over the path, the squid propelled itself after him with long, fluid movements. Its tentacles lashed at him, and only his quick step off the catwalk and onto the stained floor beneath let him avoid a blow that would have sent him flying.

But his abrupt disappearance had other consequences: unable to return to the walkway, he was forced to duck and weave between the struts of the raised paths. He was a moving shadow among other shadows, protected by a thick layer of impenetrable alloy, and the squid knew it. With only a token effort to wind its tentacles through the bars, the creature turned away.

By the time Bates emerged, reaching the pit, he turned around only to find that the squid had turned from him… to Grodin.

He could see its silhouette, bleached sickly white against the darkness, impelling itself over the top of the walkways with the long reach of its tentacles, the smaller ones at the back clutching metal and bars with almost hand-like suction cups, its arrow-shaped finned tail squirming behind it.

Beyond that, above its reach – for now – he could just see the dim glow of what was unmistakably Grodin's datapad, turning round and around, up and up, through the stairway.

_So much for being the distractions committee!_ Bates snarled angrily to himself, streaking back towards the warren of catwalks, through it, boots thudding loudly on the corrugated floor. He lifted his firearm, unleashed a spray of bullets towards the pale figure, but the darkness, the distance and the obstructions worked against him; he couldn't see properly, didn't even know if he'd hit it, and as he watched it reached up to grasp the many struts of the stairwell.

Metal shrieked, the entire edifice shuddering, not designed to hold so much weight, especially one that was trying its best to pull it apart. _Why,_ Bates thought grimly, _couldn't the Ancient perchance for immovable construction extend to a staircase?_ His mind didn't even bother to find an answer – it could've been anything from expenses to oversight – because now the squid was reaching up, its tentacles passing Grodin, securing one last hold before it would be in a position to slip through the railing and get him.

"Over here, you son-of-a-bitch!" Bates hollered, lifting the P90 and squeezing the trigger, aiming for the thick, knobbly skin of its back. Navy-coloured blood spurted from the clean holes, trickling in rivulets down rough surface, and Bates felt a certain amount of satisfaction when the squid squealed yet again, so high-pitched it made his head pound –

But then, to his horror, it began to _squeeze_ the column of steps, bending metal and beams, rattling the construction so hard that the marine could see the tiny glow near the top stumbling this way and that. Enraged with pain, the squid contrived to rip the structure apart. One tentacle wound itself around a long shaft running from top to bottom and twisted it free in a quaking of falling debris, flinging it outward with such force that Bates had to hit the ground to avoid it taking off his head.

Distantly he heard it strike the far wall with a clatter, but he was already on his feet, his ears ringing with the sound of shrieking metal, his gun vibrating brutally in his hands as he unloaded what was left of his magazine into the bastard's sorry ass.

With a mighty wrench that had parts of the staircase sailing this way and that, the squid let it fall with a crash, its blood-slick form momentarily hidden by the rubble. And then, among the wreckage, with a chill that prickled his arms, Bates saw that multi-armed form turn once more in his direction.

* * *

Peter felt the stairs giving way beneath his feet, the slatted steps buckling, and threw himself desperately at the open door, thankful that at least the detection system was ranged for more than a few yards. His shoes slipped on the turbulent metal, tripped him, dropping away underneath him, his final lunge pitching him through the entrance just as melodic, baritone alarms sounded inside, closing and locking the door with a snap.

The lights flared and he winced, shading his eyes; for several long moments he remained sprawled on the smooth floor, gasping for air, his datapad digging into his side and the ink that had begun to dry on his face turned damp with sweat.

_Wasting time, Peter?_ He heard Rodney McKay's voice ask caustically, and with something between a sigh and a groan the physicist levered himself up, almost wishing he had the head of the science division with him right now. Almost. Bates was as predictable as the Canadian, and nearly as aggravating, but somehow he thought that Rodney would prove to be more of a burden than a help.

Well, up until the point he actually got them _out._

_But Rodney's not here, so focus._ Gingerly he stood, muscles aching, and cast a rapid eye over the small gallery. Two broad windows looked out over the cavernous laboratory, the wider of the pair flanking the closed door. Before them stood familiar-looking consoles, melded into each of the forward corners, connected by a transparent monitor suspended between them. The wall opposite the entrance had a glowing panel inset into it, just next to one of the dashboards, while the back was taken up only by a sealed and obviously immovable exit. The ceiling was lined with a band of flashing red lights, the air filled with sound of the strangely musical klaxons.

Staggering to one of the instrument panels, his head already aching even despite the otherwise mellow tone of the alarms, Peter quickly found the control responsible and touched it to generate blessed silence.

For a second, at least; the next instant he heard the high, frustrated keen of the squid, so loud it was almost past the point of being able to register it, piercing through the glass, into his mind and making it difficult to think. Then, _the Sergeant!_

The Englishman's hand flew to his radio but when he activated it, it was to intense, loud static, and with a wincing curse he turned it down. Instead he slung the datapad off his shoulder, ducking beneath the protruding counter of the nearest console to find some spare wires.

The squid's howl finally ended and he breathed a sigh of relief, scrubbing wearily at his brown eyes with the back of one ink-stained hand as he poked at the pink-and-blue monitor with his stylus, initiating a download of the laboratory's mainframe.

Then, _"Doc? Are you there?"_ Bates' voice crackled over the radio, followed by a few ear-scorching cusses.

Peter huffed a reassured laugh, hand flicking up to answer. "Sergeant! Good to hear you!" He heard a relieved, exhaled exclamation, and then some muttered words about how Sheppard would have killed him if he'd broken one of his pet scientists that made the Brit chuckle despite the somewhat derogatory tone.

"_How about it? Can you –"_ The sergeant's voice was cut off beneath another long, wailing screech from the squid, followed by an ear-splitting burst of static, and for the second time Peter swore and yanked the earpiece away.

That was when it hit him: the radios acted up only when the squid cried out. If there was something in the noise to disrupt radio signals, perhaps it could interrupt other signals as well.

Like crystal technology.

The datapad flickered, becoming scrolling Ancient text set onto a lime-green background, beside a window of similarly-moving English translation, and Peter grimaced through the pounding in his head as the squid's keening abruptly halted, his eyes flying over the words on the monitor.

_There!_ Yes, that was it; the squid's shrieks were a form of echolocation which interfered with the normal crystal technology. Instead the Ancients installed a specially-designed laboratory to research the squid and other Lantean creatures which had the same ability, using rarer, sturdier crystals for the equipment, ones resistant to the calls.

There were some indefinable sounds from his radio and the physicist automatically reached up to adjust it, his eyes flashing across the screen, vaguely thinking that the biologists would kill to get their hands on this data. "Sergeant? Are you all right?" The datapad beeped, signalling it had finished downloading, and Peter, finding the transcript of little use unless they got out, quickly unplugged it to move onto the next console; the one with the clear, unsupported glass on either side, looking out over the gloomy depths of the laboratory.

"_I'm alive,"_ the marine said shortly. _"Stuffed in a vent in the wall on the storeroom side. Goes back some way; slight rising incline, gets too narrow to go far. Squid's outside somewhere. I don't think it knows where I am."_

"Well, that's something, at least," Peter murmured absently, slim pointer working through the data that was flashing past on his monitor, but he couldn't help glancing up to search semi-ineffectually outside. The glass seemed to be specially made to avoid the light's reflection impeding vision and the squid was surprisingly easy to see, a pale mass settled on the edge of the catwalk, limbs twined around girders and over floors.

The datapad chimed and he looked down again to find a thin-lined, rotating schematic afloat on a background of green. A grin spread over his face, lighting up his eyes; exactly what he wanted. "Alright," he said, exhaling. "I've found the blueprints of the laboratory."

"_Brilliant. Now open the door."_ Somehow Bates made the first word sound, not congratulatory, but almost discourteous, and Peter resisted the urge to roll his eyes, quelching irritation that he usually only felt when he was talking to one Rodney McKay. He didn't know _what_ the sergeant's problem was; he just seemed to hate scientists. Full stop.

"One moment."

* * *

_Oh, not good._ Peter ran a hand through his dark hair, finding it stiff with dried ink, and grimaced. "I've found the control pathways that should open the door."

"_Then what are we waiting for?"_ Bates grumbled tinnily, and Peter refrained from mentioning that, according to the sergeant's description, the squid was between him and the exit. They would have to open it first.

Which Peter had just discovered was impossible to do.

"The laboratory is in a lockdown because of the squid's presence. I can't override it. I can't open the door." His eyes flickered to the one behind him, the square, red light on its apex flashing tauntingly. He couldn't even open _that_; the destruction of the staircase had convinced the control room it was under attack, and wouldn't let him out until the threat was gone.

"_Great."_

Peter sighed at the man's grumbling, deprecating tone, leaning on the console with the metal digging into his palms. Would it kill the soldier to have a little faith? Not necessarily in _him;_ the Englishman didn't expect that at all, considering it was his fault they were in this mess, but at the situation in general. "If we eliminate the threat then it would be different."

"_In case you didn't notice, Doc, I emptied practically an entire magazine into that thing and it still almost got me before I took cover in here. I've got limited ammo, since I was assured this would be a quick assignment. So unless you've got another idea –"_

This time Peter gave in to the urge, fleetingly wondering whether Rodney wasn't wrong about military types who thought with their gun instead of their heads. "As a matter of fact, I do. The squid was originally confined inside the pit, with enough water to simulate its natural environment. When the Ancients wanted to observe it, it was drawn into a kind of shielded cage, an enclosure, between a floodgate in place over the pit and the ceiling. Did you see how it's lowered slightly just there?"

"_Exactly how does this help us?"_ Bates' voice was snappish and Peter shook his head long-sufferingly.

"Just providing some background, Sergeant. Now look at the way they built the room. The height of this control gallery and the catwalks, the bowl-like shape. The laboratory was intended to provide runoff into the pit to maintain or adjust the water level inside. That vent you're in? It's a sluice."

There was a pause, and then, _"Your point?"_

Peter sighed. "We can use the design of the room to flush the squid back into the pit, perhaps even force it out into the ocean." There was a heavy, almost contemplative silence, but Peter somehow got the idea the sergeant was pondering his state of mind instead of the plan. "We can do this," the physicist said forcefully. "I'm not saying it will be easy, but it is possible."

The radio clicked. _"Not easy, how?"_

Peter shook his head a little, grimacing. "The controls to the reservoirs have been rerouted from the control room – they need to be switched back before I can activate the sluices. That can be done using the panels on the far side of the room. Our second problem is more complicated; the floodgate's relays are damaged. It needs to be repaired."

There was another tense silence, leaving Peter wondering what the soldier was thinking. The scientist wished he could get down to make the repairs himself, but he was trapped in the little box on high until he could convince the door to open for him.

The quiet became interminable, and Peter's anxiousness turned into annoyance. It wasn't that farfetched an idea, not when compared to some of the reports he'd read out of the SGC or even the measures they'd taken against the entity the day before. Was it the fact that he didn't trust Peter's judgement? Was it just the marine's apparent dislike of civilians in general?

Whatever it was, _it didn't matter,_ and Peter bloody well wasn't going to let it stand any longer. "Listen to me, Sergeant," he snapped, letting his frustration tinge his words. "You said it yourself; you are a soldier. It's your job to protect us and it's your job to take the risks. But it's _my_ job to study and understand the technology. I trust you to do what you have to. Now please, trust me to do the same."

He counted his heartbeat for a few seconds more, faster than it should have been, and just when he began to despair of Bates replying, when he began to think he'd said exactly the wrong thing, the marine's voice sounded tinnily over the earpiece. _"You're sure this will work, Doc?"_

Peter straightened with a slight frown, his palms imprinted with the shape of the console. "I can't guarantee anything, Sergeant, and I won't insult your intelligence by trying to do so. But it's our only choice, and its chance of success is worth the risk." He knew they could just wait until Sergeant Grimault got worried and sent someone after them, but there was something so very humiliating about being caught in such a situation, after he'd been so sure it was a routine problem. No; not when there was another option. They could and they would get out of this themselves.

Finally the radio crackled one last time: _"Tell me what to do."

* * *

_

Bates slipped quietly through the half-open floodgate, scraping the back of his rough vest on the wide teeth of the grey opening. His elbows already ached, supporting his upper body while he held his P90 at the ready, but his dark-adjusted eyes flickered warily towards the pale blob settled in sprawling coils near the entrance side of the pit, its colourless flesh now bruised with clotting wounds. Not for the first time the soldier thanked God that he was swarthy in complexion; he didn't know how well the squid saw without using its echolocation, but he didn't want to take risks. He just found it a source of ironic amusement that the creature's own ink was also helping to conceal him, splattered over his face to the point that it looked black, even more so than Grodin's had. Or so the scientist told him, anyway.

Grodin's impassioned outburst had surprised him; he'd only been with the Englishman for a few hours and hardly spoken to him before that, but so far his impression had been one of extreme self-possession. He was expressive, in his own way, but almost unfailingly polite and unendingly patient. In one way Bates had felt smug that he could push his buttons enough to get a rise out the man; now it was clear that he'd underestimated him.

It made him wonder how many other civilians he'd misjudged. Not a pleasant thought.

Taking in a deep breath and releasing it slowly, the marine crept in the opposite direction, turning about to check his progress every so often against the ashen blob. It was difficult to see with only the dim glow of the light columns in the walls and more than once he dropped suddenly to the next step in the floor only to choke back a curse at the last moment.

By the time he reached the line of pink-and-blue glowing panels stretching from waist to head height on the endless wall, his fingers tingled with the knocks his elbows had endured and his stomach burned with exertion. Gratefully moving to a crouch, flexing his hands one by one, he cast a wary glance towards the opposite side of the lab before touching his radio and whispering, "I'm there."

"_Alright."_ Grodin's voice crackled over the speaker, turned down low. _"Reservoir control is located at the centre panel; to you it would be the fifth to your left."_ Bates tapped the earpiece once to show he understood and slid along the wall, counting the panels as he went until he reached the correct one.

"Now what?" His tone came out harsher than he wanted and he winced inwardly, but Grodin either didn't notice or care.

"_At the base of the screen there should be a row of symbols. They're similar to a toolbar on conventional Earth computers. What you want is the one that looks like two L-shaped blocks fitted together."_

Gingerly, less certain in his ability to identify Ancient runes than the scientist, Bates reached up and prodded the icon that seemed right. The screen flickered, casting purple light over the sergeant's ink-stained features and short, tightly curled hair as it changed, blipping to a shimmering outline of the laboratory, including the reservoirs tucked into the two long banks flanking the entrance.

"Got it."

"_Good."_ The next few minutes were tense for both of them; the box underneath the schematic was filled with scrolling Ancient symbols that Bates had no idea how to decipher, while Grodin had to describe to him the proper symbols to press in order to switch control of the reservoirs to him. When he was finally done his shoulders were prickling madly with anxiety, but his quick, constant glimpses towards the squid showed little motion, none of it in his direction. It was as though it had forgotten about him.

"_The crystals are located in booths just below the consoles. The ones you want are two to your right."_ Within seconds Bates was there, carefully pushing at the sliding panel, which ejected and moved aside with only a slight whir. The hollow inside was much larger than the ones beside the doors, with crystals every shade between yellow and red slotted in rows on racks and in the sides, half-hidden by clear wires draping in bunches around them.

"_Now listen carefully; this bit is going to be difficult."_ Bates snorted at that comment; like it hadn't been hard enough already, for a man whose area of expertise was in security and warfare, not engineering or linguistics. _"If you remove the wrong crystals in the wrong order you could damage them or the system."_ Bates drew in a deep breath, held it, and released.

"Go."

Carefully, with Grodin's soft voice sounding in his ear and his fingers tingling with apprehension every time he reached out, Bates gently pulled crystals out, stacking them on the bare floor beside him. Once he bumped the neighbouring rack and froze, his heart thumping in his mouth, certain he'd just set off some kind of chain reaction. When nothing happened he'd pulled back, the correct crystal already palmed, but feeling slightly ill with adrenaline on top of hunger and lack of sleep. It had to be breakfast time soon.

"I'm done," he announced quietly, slipping the bulkhead back into place and cradling the stack of crystals gingerly in one arm, the other touching the square butt of his P90 as though for reassurance.

The sound of an exhale came out of the radio, not aiding Bates' nerves at all. He was a soldier; all this fiddling with technology made him nervous. Give him something to fight any day. _"Alright. This is the tricky part."_ For some reason those words gave Bates a chill, and he fingered the black grip of his firearm comfortingly._ "The damaged relays can be reached through a panel on the wall to the left, up where the entrance bay joins with the main lab."_ Bates' chest clenched with apprehension, suddenly realizing the implications in the pause before Grodin's next words. _"I'm afraid you'll have to pass near the squid to get there."_ The scientist sounded apologetic, frustrated, and Bates knew he wanted to be there to do it himself; but he wasn't, and so the marine steeled himself. At least sneaking past an enemy was something he knew, and the squid wasn't terribly fast. At least, not when it was trying to move… its tentacles, on the other hand…

"Understood, Doc."

He scuttled across the grey floor, rounding the gaping pit, his eyes on the shape of the squid and his hands full with the crystals and his gun. If he could have, he would have crawled again; being so upright in the middle of a room with no cover made him feel nervous, then downright anxious, as he neared the squid.

The creature was nearer to the control room's side, the side in which he had hidden in the sluice, but its reach was enough to have the ringed tips of several outstretched limbs brushing the opposite perimeter of the catwalks. The outer edge of the warren of paths was a good two dozen feet from his destination, still too damn close for comfort.

Intent on keeping his eyes on the most obvious danger, his hands occupied, half-blinded by the darkness, for the second time since they'd entered the cursed laboratory he missed the pool of inky black seeping over the floor.

Next instant, the ground seemed to shift out from under him; he hit the oily surface with a blow that seared pain down his bruised arm, forcing a strangled cry from his lips, and he tumbled from one step to the next. His free hand slammed down so hard on the broad area of floor that it made his wrist twinge, halting his descent as suddenly as it had begun, the crystals digging into his skin harshly because he was clutching them so tight.

What made his blood chill, however, was the sudden ear-splitting keen that made his headache stab sharply behind his eyes.

Ignoring the aching stiffness of his shoulder, Bates scrambled to his feet, already sprinting across the floor. His instincts screamed that he was going in the wrong direction, towards the squid now roiling across the walkways, but he ignored them. Instead he keyed his radio, ears hissing with static, and shouted, "Open the sluices! Now!" without even knowing if Grodin could hear him over the residual crackle, left in the wake of the squid's call, or if the scientist would refuse, not wanting to put the sergeant in danger.

Somehow Bates didn't think he'd have a problem with the latter. Not after the Brit's little speech. Not even knowing that Bates was inside the water level and not safe on the higher catwalks, built to have the runoff flow beneath them, as they'd planned.

Somewhere in the walls there was a clunk, a grind; out of the corner of his eyes he saw distant movement, heard the sound of metal sliding – and then there was the rush of water, shuddering the floor, the catwalk, vibrating down in his pounding heart and burning lungs. He drew more energy from his aching muscles, desperately racing for the panel where he knew the relays to be.

He was steps away – he could see the wall looming in front of him, feel the squid behind, stretching for him, like his doom approaching – when a burst of foaming water exploded from the sluices, swirling white, surging down the steps. The initial flood swept him off his feet, striking him with a blow of coldness that stole his breath, and his clawing fingers reached out, scrabbling for any kind of purchase on the smooth, spray-pounded wall.

His hand touched dented metal that abruptly shifted, vanished, and then he hit a sharp-edged side that scraped at his flesh. His fingers curled around it, jerking him to a halt and giving him a chance to regain purchase on the slippery floor, the first rush slowing to something constant and booming. He was cold, wet, battered and wishing more than ever he had never stepped foot outside his room, and though the frothing tides of the wash were lessened in the lee of the narrow strip of wall he had to remain pressed to the metal to avoid being swept off a second time, the currents tugging maliciously at his feet.

Shivering, gasping, mouth and nose overwhelmed by the salt in the water, eyes blurred and half blinded, it took him a moment to register the wailing of the squid, lower in tone than its echolocation, more a sound of rage than purpose, and over that, distorted and difficult to make out through the rumble of the water, was the anxious, accented voice of Peter Grodin.

"_Sergeant? Sergeant, are you there? Please respond!"_ He got the feeling the scientist had been repeating himself, sounding flustered, but was unable to answer, choking and coughing on water.

Finally he caught his breath and managed to wheeze, "I'm here. There. Tell me what to do." He didn't even dare to look behind him at the shrieking squid; he could hear the roar of the water, the loud splash as the beast fought the tide, and his stomach clenched with urgency.

There was a sigh of relief. _"Good to hear."_ The Brit's tone of voice made it clear he wanted to ask after Bates' health, but he refrained; however bad the marine felt, he had a job to do, and Grodin would let him do it. _"Now. You should be able to identify the damaged crystals from the others through chips or cracks. Most of them will be just inside the seal; the rest I'll guide you through."_ Standing heavy with the tarn swirling around his thighs, half hunched inside the wide opening, Bates fumbled for his flashlight, propping it and his gun up between his body and the wall. The beam seemed too bright in the small space, illuminating the water green, but at least he could see.

Several of the familiar yellow or red-coloured crystals were merely shattered fragments in their slots, pricking his slightly numbed fingers as he brushed them out, the spray glistening on their surfaces like dewdrops. Swiftly he fitted the replacements in as Grodin directed, each one that left his grasp feeling as though it had lightened a weight of bricks form his shoulders. _Three more. Two more. One…_

He was just reaching into the depths of the hollow to place the last crystal, a yellow so deep it was almost gold, when the shriek of metal made him flinch, turn –

His foot slipped, plunging him into beneath the water just as a glistening tentacle scraped the wall overhead. The crystal vanished from his grasp and he lunged after it desperately, eyes stinging from the salt, the world strangely quiet and green, distorted beneath the foamy surface. He caught it, clutched it, digging harshly into his skin as he reached air, gasping and flattening himself against the metal.

He was greeted with a net of writhing tentacles, splayed in the water, slipping and sliding in resistance too much to attack; beyond them, in the water-specked beam of his flashlight, he glimpsed numerous beady, glaring eyes, set in a deep-browed body lodged in the mangled railing of the outer catwalk. As he watched, a long, damp shaft broke loose beneath one of the squid's limbs and it pitched it angrily away, sailing into the darkness. Somewhere on the far wall, he saw the rod's silhouette against the pink-and-blue glow of the panels before it crashed against them with a flurry of sparks that drifted to the broiling surface of the water several steps down.

Bates' hand dived for his reloaded P90, lifted it, fired, braced against the wall, unloading the entire magazine at a distance that amounted to point-blank for the long-armed beast. The spray of bullets tore into already damaged flesh in spurts of blood, spurting and mixing with the seawater, and the injured squid shrieked, lashed, losing its hold. With a flail of desperate limbs the artificial whirlpool took hold and dragged it down into the gurgling pit.

Almost; two of the creature's forelimbs bucked down into the water with a gigantic splash, twining around the railing of the lower catwalk. Bates twisted around and shoved the crystal into place, banging his hand and elbow, bellowing into the radio, "Close the floodgates!"

The crystals lit up with an energetic hum and thick metal cut through the wash draining into the pit, swirling to a close like a spiral iris, severing the squid's final lifelines with a pained, defeated screech, muffled by the gate and the roar of the water. Bates sank against the wall, his body feeling suddenly weak, his eyes itchy with salt and tiredness, too weary to even feel much triumph. Only a sudden swelling current, threatening to pull him off his feet, kept him aware.

"_We've got a problem,"_ Grodin's voice, sounding strained, burst his relief. _"The relays to control the sluices were damaged by that piece of debris. I can't shut them off."_

It took several seconds for that to penetrate Bates' exhausted mind, and when it did he realized something else: the water had risen to his waist. "I thought you said it was supposed to drain into the pit!" he snarled accusingly, knowing he wasn't being fair but too damned tired to care.

"_The sluices in the floodgate aren't designed to let this much water through this quickly. It's letting it out, but not nearly fast enough. Wait a moment…"_ There was a pause, a scraping chime that sounded like crystals being moved, and Bates had to grip the hollow's side to keep himself steady against the stronger currents, his limbs feeling heavy. _"I've engaged emergency evacuation protocols. If you can get to the airlock door, I'll see about keeping it open as long as I can."_

Bates only registered one thing. _The door's open!_ he thought with a mixture of irony and relief, and his squinting gaze snapped to the catwalk, the corrugated flooring of the lowest safe path already with water bubbling through the gaps. He already knew what he had to do, so without giving himself time to think about it, he waded stiffly to the edge of the bulkhead, his clothes clinging to him like he clung to the corner. Then he pushed off from the wall, casting himself into the swirl of the whirlpool, legs pumping desperately against the undertow and hands snatching for the metal shafts jutting out tauntingly close.

They grazed his skin, eluding his grasp, and he felt a brief stab of panic… and then his hand slapped down on cool, sturdy metal.

* * *

Peter's hands flew over the crystals, pressing, moving, his brown eyes fixed on the flickering screen and static the only thing he could hear through his radio. The water level was steadily rising; the reservoirs would eventually empty, he knew, but by then the airlock would be underwater and the security protocols would have locked Sergeant Bates out. He couldn't reduce the water flow from the insane flood he'd overridden security to key in, not now the relays were damaged, nor did he dare to reopen the floodgates, for though there was little chance of the squid managing to surpass several hundred mega-litres of water being dumped on it, the drag could carry Bates down with it.

So he was forced to wait, maintaining the door, casting anxious glances at the swirling froth he could see through the window, reflecting the dim lights, creeping up the steps on the opposite wall. The sluices were set in a semi-circle only on the entrance side, where the scientists would have been better protected by the height of the catwalks, but the panelled wall was deliberately left bare of the conduits to compensate for that lack.

Even when he managed to open the exit to his own little prison using the same protocols, he didn't look away from the basic, 2D schematic displayed on his datapad, a crisscross of thin lines and shimmering colour.

And then a tiny area on the map flashed, zoomed in, the double-thick lines representing a door suddenly red, and relief washed through the physicist, making him feel weak with the after-effect of adrenaline. With one last slap on a crystal, a swift tug had his datapad detached from the wires and slung over his shoulder, and then he was gone, shoes loud on the stone-like floor, vanished around the doorframe.

Behind him, the map flashed in two different places, thickly lined circles turning white. Out the window, water gurgled, the floodgates withdrawing back into the pit's lining, and with a rush and swirl of frothy eddies the flooded laboratory emptied into the cavity. The pressure drove at a multi-legged creature, forcing it down to the pit's foundation and through the second set of now-open gates, into the murky, expansive ocean.

* * *

Bates ached all over. He could feel every twinge and cramp, slumped against the outside door of the airlock, his clothes and face still stained with ink and dripping in broadening puddles over the crimson floor. His radio was missing and his hands rested over his P90, slung over his lap, his legs stretched out before him. It wasn't the most comfortable of positions, but right then he didn't care.

Then the sound of pounding footsteps cut through the ache in his head, echoing in such a way that confused him until he realized they were descending a staircase, and they were coming nearer. Still he didn't move; not when he heard the solid noise of someone stepping down onto the floor, nor a thankful call of his rank, or even when he felt a presence approach and kneel before him.

"Sergeant?" Grodin asked, sounding worried, and Bates sensed him lean over him to search for wounds.

It was only then that the marine shoved aside his fatigue, lifting his head, gripping a startled Grodin's shoulder with a lightning-fast movement and yanking him near, glaring at him with piercing brown eyes. "Sparring lesson. Tomorrow afternoon. Be there."

The physicist, damn him, just grinned widely, eyes sparkling with something akin to mischief and gladness, and prised Bates' hand off his shoulder. "Come along, Sergeant," he said with a chuckle, way too cheerfully. "We should report in to the control room. I daresay they're wondering where we are." And he offered a still ink-stained hand to help him up, waiting patiently for the heartbeat that Bates eyed it before accepting.

* * *

"Come on, Carson, you're not doing anything important around here," Rodney McKay badgered, trailing after his stocky companion as the Scotsman moved around his newly claimed infirmary, white labcoat billowing.

"I'm putting my infirmary in order, Rodney, you dinna call that important?" Carson Beckett asked with a raise of his brow, his words thick with accent as he shifted a stack of boxes from one corner to the base of a thick grey pillar.

"That's what subordinates are for," brown-haired Rodney pointed out with a little head-twitch, waving his hand dismissively as the doctor skirted around him and a high, bronze-coloured examination couch with a thick padded cushion. "Look, I wouldn't have asked, but my gene's not working and the major over there," – he shot a blue-eyed glare to the scruffy-haired soldier sitting on another of the long couches, who made a face at him back – "Decided to take the coward's way out."

"I got zapped!" Major Sheppard protested incredulously, legs hanging over the side of the bed.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, yes, big strong air force major can handle being shot at by Wraith but can't handle a tiny little shock."

Carson shot the thickset scientist a slightly amused, slightly reproving look, lips pursed as he cut thumbed open the locks on a round-cornered packing case set on the rolling tray before him. The physicist had a slight point; while his medical staff were avoiding that particular area of the infirmary for now, partly due to Rodney's presence and partly to avoid being drawn into the argument about the ATA gene, he could hear them bustling around in the other string of rooms claimed for the infirmary, and knew they were perfectly capable of unpacking.

But there was something Carson had always enjoyed about the motion after moving to a new place. It rooted him, made him feel more at home in the new area, so he'd always made a habit of doing so.

"Five minutes," Rodney demanded rather than asked, holding up a spread hand for a heartbeat before it returned to brush at his beige-coloured pants. "That's all. Then you can come back here and practise your little voodoo rites."

Carson raised an eyebrow at the insult. "If you want me t' help you, Rodney, you'll have to do better than tha'," he scoffed, crossing his arms over his white, zipped up shirt.

Rodney's opened his mouth to answer when they were interrupted by the sound of the bronze door on the end whooshing open. As one all three of them looked towards it, only to see a chagrined-looking Peter, dressed in casual black trousers and a grey T-shirt, escorting semi-uniformed Sergeant Bates into the room.

A Sergeant Bates with a vaguely amused – or maybe _be_mused – scowl clouding his eyes, holding a once-white towel up to his bleeding nose.

"What happened?" Carson demanded, already hurrying over to them, and Peter quickly stepped aside to allow the doctor in, leading the sergeant over to the nearest couch.

The pair's little escapade the previous morning was already common knowledge throughout the city. They had strolled into the gateroom looking as though someone had dunked them into black ink and then – in Sergeant Bates' case – dropped a few dozen buckets over them.

Fortunately, it was still early enough that the gateroom only had a few people in it, one of which – Sergeant Grimault – didn't make a habit of recording embarrassments.

Unfortunately, one of the others, Tan Nguyen, was the biggest gossip on the control staff. Worse, Elizabeth Weir herself had decided to come in early and witnessed their grand entrance with a mixture of amusement and apprehension.

Most people found the mental image of the serious marine looking as though he'd been the victim of an entire playgroup highly amusing, but they were tactful – or perhaps scared – enough to laugh elsewhere. Especially the biologists, since Bates had threatened to stop Grodin from handing over the data he'd collected, which they were currently drooling over. The chemists, on the other hand, were practically singing their praises, delighted with the fabric samples the two had donated, since the ink had proven strongly adhesive and simply wouldn't come out of their clothing.

John had heard tell it took Bates two hours of scrubbing before the ink on his skin had started to fade.

Truth to tell, the major was kind of sorry he'd missed all the action. So was Rodney, apparently; according to rumour, he'd confined Grodin to the control room only, citing himself as the best person to go on exploratory missions. He used semi-serious assertions of Grodin's incompetence as his reasoning, if John recalled, but no one honestly believed that. Rodney just wanted to find things first. Although, he _had_ been interested in the strange crystal Grodin provided.

"You all right there, Sergeant?" the major asked with a frown, slipping off his perch with a thud of shoes and joining a disgusted-looking Rodney around them.

"A word of advice, sir," Bates said thickly, his eyes flickering in John's direction as he tilted his head up to let Carson take a look at his injury, the Scot muttering about broken bones. "Never get in front of Doc Grodin's fist."

"Been there." Rodney tilted his head, bouncing on his toes smugly as he crossed his arms over his blue-shirted chest. "Done that."

"_Without,"_ Bates snapped, placing heavy emphasis on the word and shooting a glare at the Canadian, "One of those shield things."

"Grodin?" John lifted his chin to look past the sergeant at the grimacing Brit, raising an eyebrow. "Not that I'm not thrilled to see that one of the science squad can hold their own in a fight, but exactly why did you decide to beat the crap outta one of my men?"

Grodin had the grace to look embarrassed, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "We were boxing," he admitted.

"Call me ignorant here," Rodney twirled a finger in midair, his elbow resting on his other arm. "But doesn't boxing usually entail some sort of padding to _avoid_ this sort of thing?"

"Usually," Bates threw an exasperated glance at Grodin, who just ignored him and opted for answering Rodney's question.

"Yes, but we don't have the equipment," he told the trio appealingly. "At most we had my boxing gloves, but it didn't seem fair for one of us to use them and the other to go without. So we decided not to use them at all."

"Well, it's not too bad a break," Carson observed tolerantly, probing Bates' nose as the sergeant endured stoically with only the occasional wince. "We'll take an x-ray jus' to make sure, but you migh' want to avoid the gym for a while."

John couldn't help exchanging a delightedly entertained look with Rodney, who rolled his eyes, lips twitching. Oooh, Bates wasn't going to live this down; he came out of a scuffle with a giant squid with nothing more than a few bruises, only to get his nose broken by the scientist he'd supposed to be partnering. The major was already planning the best way to spread the tale; maybe if he let slip to Ford…

He was brought out of his thoughts by the buzz of Grodin's radio, and the next instant, Elizabeth's voice sounded through all their earpieces on the widespread channel. _"Doctor Grodin, this is Doctor Weir. Peter, where are you? I thought you needed to show me some things in the control room."_

Grodin's hand flew to his ear so he could reply, eyes skittering absently over the scarlet floor. He paid no attention to the quartet of men who watched him with interest, even as Carson continued his ministrations on Bates, obviously delaying the point when he'd have to take the marine in for x-rays so he could observe. "Sorry, Doctor Weir. I had to –" He hesitated for less than a beat, continuing, "I had to take care of something first. I'll be right there."

"_Alright,"_ Elizabeth agreed graciously, knowing that if the punctual scientist was late then he had a good reason._ "And while you're out there, see if you can find Sergeant Bates. I need to speak to him too."_

Peter's brown eyes widened fractionally, his gaze flying to a smug-looking Bates as Carson turned his head to hide his chuckle, Rodney rolled his eyes, and Sheppard grinned broadly. "Uh… that's… going to be a problem." The physicist glanced almost beseechingly at the others, but Sheppard put up his hands and shook his head, while Rodney folded his arms over his chest and glared back challengingly, both of their stances clear, so the Brit grimaced and went on reluctantly. "I'm with him in the infirmary…"

There was a longsuffering sigh on the other end of the line._ "What happened? And please, don't tell me you both ran into one of those squid things again."_

Peter turned away from his companions, who were staring at him with broad, mirthful expressions, and wondered exactly what he'd done to deserve this.

"Not exactly…"

- finis


End file.
